


Fire and Ashes

by Cynder2013



Series: Mostly Unrelated PJO Fusion Fics [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Absent Parents, Alternate Universe - Buffy The Vampire Slayer Fusion, Background Relationships, Blood Drinking, Blood and Violence, Canonical Character Death, Demons, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Language of Flowers, Murder, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, PJO Easter Eggs, POV Multiple, Parent-Child Relationship, Past Relationship(s), Past Torture, Past Violence, Unreliable Narrator, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:55:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23314276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cynder2013/pseuds/Cynder2013
Summary: Leo has daddy issues. Buffy has an enemy she can't kill. Angel just wants people from his past to stop showing up in Sunnydale.(A weird fusion fic originally posted on fanfiction.net.)(Seriously, this is a weird one. Don't say I didn't warn you.)
Relationships: Daniel "Oz" Osbourne/Willow Rosenberg, Jason Grace & Piper McLean & Leo Valdez, Jason Grace/Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, Leo Valdez/Sapphire Banks (PJO/HoO OC), Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Series: Mostly Unrelated PJO Fusion Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1682968
Kudos: 5





	1. Surprises are the Worst

Leo Valdez was of the opinion that, with very few exceptions, cars were better than people. As long as you took care of a car it would take care of you until the end of the road or the end of the world, whichever came first. He and his mom had a 1987 Dodge Ram 50 that still ran like new thanks to the work they'd done to it over the years. Leo had been working with cars since he was old enough to hold a wrench. The job he’d scored last year at Sunnydale’s one and only auto shop was a godsend. He didn’t have to awkwardly socialize after school, he got to spend time with cars, and they now had a second income to put toward the essentials. Choosing between electricity and running water was a thing of the past.

Leo wheeled himself out from under the car he was working on. “Hey, Beckendorf.”

Charles Beckendorf—one of the exceptions—looked up from the engine he was elbows deep in. “Yeah?”

Leo wordlessly held up the piece of metal he’d finally extracted from the car’s undercarriage. It was blackened and bent, but it was still clearly a knife. And not a kitchen knife, a medieval, knight-in-shining-armor knife.

Beckendorf raised an eyebrow. “Man, that's the third one this month. How did that even get there?”

“Beats me.” Leo heaved himself off of the ground and went to put the knife with the rest of the collection of weird things they'd found in vehicles, which was officially the lost and found box. As usual, he eyed the taxidermied hippie squirrel wearing a tiny tie-dye dress warily. That thing freaked him out. His first week of work, he swore he’d seen it move.

He rolled back under the car and studied the damage the knife had left behind. The brake line had been cut and the knife had somehow pinned together several parts into an amalgamated maze of metal. It was such a mess that he could barely tell what was what. How had that even happened? Fixing this was going to take a whole lot longer than he'd thought it would.

“Aw man,” Beckendorf groaned.

Leo rolled back out from under the car. Beckendorf was staring into the open hood of the truck that he was working on with a mournful look on his face. “What is it?” Leo asked.

Beckendorf took has hands out of the truck and held up something that Leo was sure made him glad that he was wearing gloves.

“Aw man,” Leo echoed. “That isn’t going in the lost and found, is it?”

The floppy human arm that Beckendorf was holding was covered in something that looked like rust but was probably definitely blood. It was ragged at the elbow like it had been torn off or chewed on. Beckendorf looked at Leo, entirely unimpressed.

Leo sighed. “I’ll go call the cops.”

It was late when Leo got home. Mr. D, the owner of the auto shop where he worked, had been too hungover to deal with the cops, so they had to wait until his wife Ariadne arrived before anything got done. By the time the cops left it was long past time to close up the shop.

Leo walked up the crumbling front steps and unlocked the door. He didn’t expect that his mom would be home yet, so he was surprised when he saw a light on in the back of the house.

“Mom?” he called. “You home?”

“In the kitchen, _mijo_ ,” his mom called back. “There’s someone here I want you to meet.”

The only thing Leo got out of that sentence was that social services hadn’t come by for a surprise inspection. He moved slowly, trying to eavesdrop on the people in the kitchen. Maybe he could at least figure out how many people there were. No luck, the kitchen was totally silent. 

Esperanza Valdez was the first person her son saw when he entered the room. She had a smudge of grease on her jaw and strands of hair falling out of her ponytail. She looked beautiful. Leo turned his attention to the man sitting across the table from her. His hair was curly and what he had on his head was long enough to hide most of his ears. His ear lobes were covered by his impressive beard. He had calloused hands that dwarfed the mug he was cradling between them. His arms were bulging with muscles. In short, he looked like a blacksmith from the artwork for a fantasy game. The only things that ruined that image were his clothes (a regular old jeans and t-shirt combo with a motorcycle jacket hanging over his chair), his ears, which, when he pushed back his hair, looked more like they belonged to an elf, and his age. The man couldn't have been older than twenty-five, far from the grizzled old blacksmith that his look echoed. 

The man looked at Leo. He had warm eyes. Very warm eyes. Fire-coloured eyes with no visible pupils. 

Leo took a step back. “Uh, hi?”

“Hello, Leo,” the man said. His voice was low, rumbling like a volcano that was about to erupt.

Leo looked at his mom. He raised an eyebrow. The question of “who the hell is this?” was fairly obvious.

“This is Heff,” Esperanza said. She took a deep breath. “He’s your father.”

Leo blinked. “What?” Esperanza had never told him that his dad was dead, but that was what he usually assumed. Sometimes, when he was feeling unusually pessimistic, he thought that the guy was just a deadbeat. Either way, his dad was never supposed to be sitting in his house drinking hot cocoa.

Leo turned back to Heff, who was still looking at him with those alien eyes. Heff was also far too young to be Leo's dad. According to what his mom had told him, she had met his dad in their first year of college. That would put him at at least thirty-five if he was still alive, not barely twenty.

“You’re not human, are you?” Leo asked.

Heff shook his head. “No, I am not.”

Leo crossed his arms. “And you’re really my dad?”

“Yes, I am.”

“So why are you showing up now?” Heff started to speak but Leo cut him off. “Where were you when my mom couldn’t find a job because no one would let her take a baby to work? Where were you when social services took me away from her because we didn’t have anywhere to live? Where were you for all those years when they kept threatening to take me away again because we couldn’t pay for electricity and running water? Where were you then?”

Leo was breathing hard. His eyes were playing tricks on him. It looked like there was a flame on the end of his nose, which felt appropriate but wasn’t actually possible.

Esperanza gasped. Heff looked solemnly at Leo’s nose.

Leo sighed. “My nose is actually on fire, isn’t it?”

Heff nodded. “That is why I am here.”

Leo gingerly patted out the fire on his nose and was only mildly surprised when he wasn’t burned. So he wasn’t totally human. Great. His life was going to suck if he kept randomly bursting into flame.

“I can’t talk to you right now,” Leo said. “Later, not now.”

Neither Heff nor Esperanza made any sort of protest as he turned around and walked straight out the door.

Leo walked and walked and walked. As he walked, he thought. He didn’t notice when the sun began to set. He didn’t keep track of where he was going. It was a surprise when he looked up and saw that he was at the playground that he’d gone to when he was a kid. It was near one of the cemeteries, most things in Sunnydale were, and only a few blocks away from his house. For some reason he thought he’d walked further than that.

There was a girl sitting on one of the swings with her back to him. Her black hair fell in waves nearly to the ground. The chains of the swing had been twisted together and as Leo watched the girl took her feet off the ground and went spinning around and around. She laughed. It was a sound of pure delight. When she stopped spinning she was facing Leo. She looked around his age. She wore a diaphanous black dress that provided a stark contrast to her heavy black combat boots and made her skin look even paler. She was Asian, which was an oddity in Sunnydale (Leo was certain that the number of non-white people in town could be counted on two hands). 

The girl smiled at Leo across the playground. “Your head is on fire.”

Leo lifted a hand to check and came away with a handful of flames. The girl kept smiling, though she did gesture towards a nearby drinking fountain. 

“You’re not human,” the girl said after Leo had put the fire out.

Leo took a step back. The girl laughed musically.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not either.”

“Really?” Leo asked.

The girl nodded. “Do you want to sit with me?”

Leo hesitated for a second. “Yeah, sure.” He went and sat down in the other swing.

The girl pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Her eyes were dark too. They sparkled as they caught the light of the stars. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Leo,” Leo said. “What about you?”

The girl smiled.

* * *

The girl remained in the playground long after Leo had gone home. She watched the moon rise over the trees. It was a beautiful moon, full and bright. She searched in vain for the rabbit on its surface. She could never see the moon rabbit anymore. Her eyes were too sharp for soft edges to blend into each other.

When the moon was at its zenith she rose from the swing and began to walk. She walked and walked. Her hair and her dress whispered as she moved through the silent streets. Then the wind blew and it whispered such beastly and beautiful things. Abhorrent and angelic. She smiled and turned around. She had a destination now.

The door was unlocked. Of course it was. The one who lived behind it wasn’t worried about anything that could be stopped by a locked door. The girl pushed it open and padded inside. The building was large but warm. The man she was here for was sitting on the couch in front of a fireplace with a book in his hand. He looked up as she got closer to him.

Quick as a wink, the girl swooped down and landed a kiss on his mouth. “Hello, Angelus.”

Angel rested his forehead against her’s. “What are you doing here, Shinko?” he asked softly.

The girl kissed him again. “I’m here to see you, silly.” She drew back. “And that’s not my name anymore. I’ve been Sapphire for at least fifty years. You really are out of the loop, aren’t you?”

Sapphire perched on the arm of the couch nearest to Angel. She took the book he’d been reading out of his hands and perused it leisurely. It was poetry, French. She tossed it aside.

“Where are Nicola and Haydée?” Angel asked.

“ _Nico_ and _Hazel_ are in Lyon.” Sapphire swung her legs. “I ditched them with Nico’s newest boy toy.”

William Solace was a golden boy with a keen mind and a lust for adventure—just Nico’s type. It hadn’t taken much goading to get him to agree to come with them on a whirlwind European tour. Sapphire liked Will. She hoped that Nico wouldn’t get bored of him after a few months like he had all the other boys. That was partially why she left. She didn’t want to get attached to a new brother only for him not to become her brother at all. It had happened more than once before. 

Sapphire’s stomach growled. She hadn’t had a meal since she’d arrived in Sunnydale the night before. “Do you have anyone to eat around here?” she asked Angel.

Angel looked off to one side. "Stay here." He disappeared into the next room and came back after a few minutes with a warm mug nearly brimming over with blood.

Sapphire accepted the blood and held it under her nose. She felt her face shift into its demonic form even as she grimaced. Beef blood. Ick. She drank it anyway. It would tide her over until she could get a real meal. There had to be humans in this town stupid enough to be out so long after sunset, it was a Hellmouth after all.

“You have to leave,” Angel said the second she’d finished drinking the blood.

Sapphire’s face shifted back into its human form and she licked blood off her upper lip. “But I just got here.”

Angel’s face was set in a serious expression. Sapphire pouted. “Aren’t we friends, Angelus? Do you remember when I taught you how to play Pins? You said that you could appreciate how delicate it was.”

Angel made a sound that could have been a groan, though Sapphire didn’t see what he had to be unhappy about. Pins was a fun game that she was quite proud of herself for inventing. To play you took a pin—and in those days it was easy to find pins, ladies used them to hold their dresses together and in a pinch a hairpin or hatpin would do—and stuck it in the fleshy part of a human’s shoulder. Then you bit whichever part of the body twitched in response. The winner was the one who had the most bite marks closest to the neck when the human expired. A good game could last for hours, days if you drank sparingly and had only two players. 

“It's Angel now,” Angel said. “Leave town, Sapphire. Go back to France.”

Sapphire hopped off of the couch. “I don’t want to and you can’t make me. I'll see you around, _Angel._ ”

* * *

The library at Sunnydale High was rarely used for its intended purpose. When there was world saving to do there wasn’t much room left for teenagers trying to take out books, not that any teenagers but the world saving ones ever went into the library in the first place.

The night after Sapphire had paid him a visit, Angel was walking around the library, taking books off the shelves and putting them back while he waited for the rest of the usual suspects to arrive. Sometimes he would find a book that was useful and he added it to the pile on the table where Giles was reading the first book that Angel had found. 

Giles kept reading the same few pages over and over again. He looked up when Angel came to add another old tome to the pile. “Are you quite sure?”

Angel nodded.

Giles took off his glasses and began cleaning the lenses with a handkerchief.

Buffy, Willow, Xander and Oz arrived a few minutes later. Angel was standing behind the tower of books on the table. Giles was still cleaning his glasses.

“Oh god,” Buffy said. “The world is ending, isn’t it?”

“What makes you say that?” Giles asked.

Buffy crossed her arms. “You’re polishing your glasses into a new prescription.”

Giles put his glasses back on. “Yes, well. Angel has...news for us.”

“Oh joyous day,” Xander said. He sat down on the checkout counter. “How cryptic is it?”

Angel picked up a book from the middle of the stack he had made and opened it, turning the pages until he found the one with a black and white photograph of Sapphire next to a short paragraph. He turned the book around and pointed at the picture. “She’s in town. If you see her, run.”

“Not cryptic at all.” Xander hopped off the counter and come closer to get a better look at the photo.

Willow held out her hands and Angel gave her the book. “Name: Shinko,” Willow read. “Aliases: The Shadow Girl. Age: Unknown. Appearance: Japanese girl of sixteen to eighteen years. Range: Europe and Asia. Patterns: Unknown, may torture women with hat pins. Companions: Bianca, Nicola, _Angelus,_ Haydée Zenaida.”

Angel grimaced as everyone else in the room looked at him. “That’s out of date. Bianca was killed in the 1870s.”

“You know this girl?” Buffy demanded.

“Out of date?” Giles asked at nearly the same time. “How can it be out of date? That’s the latest edition!”

Angel chose to answer Giles’s questions first. “Half the vampires in there are dust. The other half have changed their names, habits, or both. Shinko goes by Sapphire now, and hat pins are out of style.”

Giles looked scandalized. He began cleaning his glasses again.

“You know this girl?” Buffy repeated. “You were her ‘companion’?” Her fingers made air quotes around the word.

Angel nodded slowly. “We travelled together for a few years near the end of the 1850s. She...” He hesitated. “She liked killing Watchers when I knew her. As far as I know she still does.”

All eyes immediately turned to Giles. He looked remarkably unperturbed. It probably helped that that information was in the book he had been reading.

“So, Buffy is going to kill her.” Willow looked at Buffy. “Right?”

“Duh,” Buffy said. 

“No,” Angel and Giles said.

There was a brief stand-off that ended when Xander asked, “Why?”

Giles referenced the book in front of him. “When Bianca was killed in 1872 by the Slayer at the time, her siblings--that is Nicola, Shinko and Haydée--hunted down the Slayer and killed her and her Watcher, then went back and slaughtered everyone in the town where Bianca had been killed and burnt it to the ground.”

“They killed the Watcher’s family too,” Angel added. “They know how to hold a grudge.”

“So if we kill her then the other two will wipe Sunnydale off the map.” Xander frowned. “Remind me why that’s a bad thing?”

“We live in Sunnydale,” Willow said.

Xander blinked. “Oh yeah. Let's not get the town destroyed.”

“I’m trying to get her to leave,” Angel said. “Until then, try to stay away from her.”

When Angel got back to the mansion Sapphire was kneeling in the back garden heaping soil over the roots of flowers. Roses of all sorts, tiny violets and blooming moonflowers spiralled through the flower beds, crowding out any dead plants that may have still been there. It was unlikely that there were any dead plants left in the beds judging by the large pile of them over by the wall.

Angel sighed. “Hello, Sapphire.”

Sapphire looked up at him. “You have a pretty garden, Angel. I hope you don’t mind that I added to it.”

Angel wanted to ask where she’d gotten the new flowers from, but he also knew that he didn’t want to know. Plausible deniability; and the garden did look a lot nicer than it had with just overgrown vines, shaggy trees, and dead flowers. “Why violets?” he asked instead. “From what I remember you like roses and spider lilies.”

Sapphire frowned. “You can’t find spider lilies here.”

Well, that was a completely logical answer. Not exactly what he would have expected from Sapphire, but he’d take it.

Sapphire stood up and tried to brush soil off her dress bust mostly succeeded in smearing it across the fabric in heavy streaks. “I smell Slayer blood. Did you get into a fight with her?”

“No, I didn’t,” Angel said carefully.

“Do you fight _with_ her?”

Angel said nothing.

“Well, I guess that rumour’s true too.” Sapphire stepped closer and Angel saw that she had a drop of blood on the corner of her mouth. “You are not the hero, Angel. Heroes walk in the light. We belong to the darkness.”

“I don’t believe that,” Angel said.

Sapphire reached out and cradled his cheek in her hand. “Prince of darkness,” she crooned. “Child of night. You know I'm telling the truth. The Slayer will burn you to ashes.”

Wind rustled the trees. Sapphire slipped into the shadows and was gone.


	2. Another One for the Obits

Heff visited for three days. Leo had to work hard to hate him and he didn’t think he quite managed it. His father was just as socially awkward as he was. He had a motorcycle instead of cars, but the principle of machines being better—i.e. easier to understand—than people was the same. They spent hours working on Heff’s bike and the car Leo was building from scrap parts, not saying more than three words at a time, maybe a dozen each total. Esperanza checked up on them before and after work every day. Every time she went away smiling.

When they weren’t working on their vehicles, Heff taught Leo the basics of how to control his flame powers. According to Heff they were fire giants, not regular old fire spirits, which meant that Leo’s power would tend towards big boom if he didn’t keep a handle on it. In their dimension—yes, fire spirits got their own dimension—uncontrollable fire and explosions wouldn't be a problem because almost everything was made out of lava anyway. In the human world though, they weren’t the greatest things to have a lot of. Leo was lucky; he mostly set himself on fire. Heff taught him how not to make anything explode and how to stop burning his clothes off. 

Leo went back to school the day after Heff left. He'd gotten a call from Beckendorf that morning to let him know that Mr. D had gotten sober enough to reopen the shop, so he had to work after school too. That meant that he wouldn’t have a lot of time to work on the problem his dad had left him. The other problem he’d been wrestling with since his dad had arrived could definitely be solved during the school day, as long as his best friends in the whole world didn’t abandon him during lunch.

Jason and Piper were already at their usual lunch table when Leo got there. They had the school paper on the table between them.

“Hey, you’re not dead,” Jason said when Leo sat down.

Leo grinned. “Nope.”

Jason pushed the paper towards Leo. “Check out the obits.”

“Let him eat first,” Piper said.

Leo compromised. He took bites of his sandwich while he read through the obituaries from the last week. “Castor’s dead? I thought he just didn’t bother to show up to class.”

Leo and Jason had done a presentation in history the week before that Castor was also supposed to be in. They’d gotten an automatic F because Castor wasn’t there.

“Yeah, me too,” Jason frowned and bit his lip thoughtfully. “Do you think Ms. Gottschalk will change our grade to not failing now that we know our third member is dead?”

Piper cleared her throat pointedly.

“Poor Pollux,” Jason said quickly. Leo made noises of agreement and sympathy through his sandwich.

Understanding lit up Leo’s mind. “Hey, that explains why my boss has been drinking so much.” Castor and Pollux were Mr. D’s sons. Leo hoped that the arm Beckendorf had found wasn’t Castor’s.

Piper covered her face with her hands. Her elbows just missed ending up in her pasta salad. “Why am I friends with you?”

A lightning grin flashed across Jason's face. “You love us.”

Piper kicked him under the table.

“Ow.” Jason turned to Leo. “So, why weren’t you at school yesterday?”

Leo put down his sandwich. “My dad came to visit.” 

Jason and Piper looked at each other. They were silent. So silent that Leo could hear Buffy Summers two tables over saying something about crossbows and faith. 

Both Jason and Piper knew what it was like to have a parent that didn’t seem to want you. Piper’s mom had left her dad for an army guy with a motorcycle. Jason’s dad had just walked out as soon as he was born, literally, according to Jason’s sister. If one of them got a visit from their missing parent they wouldn’t come to school either. They’d be too busy putting that parent in the hospital.

“Okay,” Jason finally said. “What happened?”

“He’s actually pretty nice.” Leo picked up his can of pop and rolled it between his hands. “He wants me to go visit him after graduation.”

“Are you going to?” Piper asked.

Leo shrugged. “I'm thinking about it.” If it had just been a matter of getting on a plane, he would have said yes as soon as he knew his mom was okay with it. Add in the fact that he’d be going to another dimension and he was really not enthused about the whole idea. He changed the subject. “Have you guys seen a new student in our grade?”

“Nope,” Jason said. Piper shook her head. 

Leo sighed. That was his other problem. “I met a girl.”

Piper rolled her eyes. “Oh, fantastic. Is she going to try to cut your head off and freeze it too?”

“Hey! That was one time. Once!” In hindsight, he should have known that dating a girl named after a snow goddess was a bad idea. They did live in California after all. Thank god Buffy had gotten him out of that mess. 

“Well, she doesn’t go here,” Jason said. “Maybe she’s at Kent Prep. I could ask Reyna.”

Leo raised an eyebrow. “You guys dating again?”

Jason nodded. He smiled and Leo knew he was thinking about Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano, the most beautiful girl at Kent Prepatory School (Jason’s worlds, not his). Jason and Reyna had been dating on and off since last year. Leo gave it a week before they broke up this time. And Piper thought his love life was bad.

“Did you get her name?” Jason asked.

It was Leo's turn to smile. “Sapphire di Angelo.”

Piper shook her head. “This is not going to go well.” She picked at her salad. “Girls tend to have issues with you, remember?”

“Nope,” Leo said. “All the ladies love Leo.”

Piper rolled her eyes towards the ceiling. “He’s talking about himself in the third person. Fantastic.”

“Piper kind of has a point,” Jason said. “When you asked Cordelia out she turned you down so hard you got a concussion.”

Leo sighed. “Look, man, I’m not going to do anything stupid. We can all agree that asking out Cordelia was stupid?”

Jason and Piper nodded. Quickly. Nice to see that they had so much faith in his stupidity.

“And Sapphire isn’t Queen C. Or Harmony or Aura or any of the Cordettes...Or Khione.” Leo winched reflexively. Khione had been terrifying. 

“So she’s normal?” Piper picked up her drink, some vegan smoothie she made that actually didn’t taste terrible. “Well, I guess that’s an improvement. Ask her out if you want, but we get to meet her before you go anywhere not public.”

“Thanks, Beauty Queen.” Leo rolled his eyes. He’d just said that he wouldn't do anything stupid. After Khione, going somewhere private with a girl no one else had met definitely counted as stupid.

“Don't call me that, Repair Boy. I stopped doing pageants years ago.” Right around the same time her mom had left, actually. There was totally no connection between the two events.

Jason took a bite of his burger, frowned, and opened it to remove the pickles. “So,” he said while he was picking through lettuce leaves, “tell us more about this girl.”

Leo’s resolution not to do anything stupid lasted until after he got home from work that afternoon. His mom was still in L.A. at her job so he had the house to himself, but the house was so empty that he was having trouble thinking. He wrestled uselessly with some homework for an hour until he gave up and decided to go for a walk. He wandered around Sunnydale, thinking in circles. When the sun began to set he turned around to head for home. His mom would be back soon and he didn’t want to make her worry by not being there.

As Leo turned a corner he collided with just the person that, in the back of his mind, he was hoping to see. “Sapphire!”

The girl stumbled and Leo caught her arm. Sapphire laughed. “Good to see you too. Leo, right?”

“Yeah.” Leo let go of her arm when he saw that she’d caught her balance. “Do you live around here?” They were in the wishy-washy area between downtown and the suburbs, where single family homes stood next to apartment complexes.

Sapphire nodded. “What are you doing out here? Oh! Were you at that nightclub I’ve been hearing about? I’ve been looking but I haven’t been able to find it yet.”

“The Bronze? Not really my scene.” Leo didn’t want to admit that he’d only ever been to the club once, and that was when he’d met Khione. He’d avoided it after that.

“Pity.” Sapphire sighed. “It sounded like fun.”

“It can be,” Leo said quickly. “I’ve just had some bad experiences.”

Sapphire started to nod, but when she lifted her head her eyes just kept going up until she had tilted her head all the way back and was looking at the sky with a smile on her face. “The stars will be bright tonight.”

Leo looked up too. The sky had just started to go dark. He didn’t see any sign indicating star brightness. Maybe it was something to do with whatever type of nonhuman Sapphire was. They'd never really gotten around to talking about that the last time they’d met.

“So, I set stuff on fire,” Leo said. “How about you?”

Sapphire grinned. “Me too! But that’s not what you really wanted to know, is it?”

“Probably not,” Leo said. As far as he knew there could be thousands of nonhumans with fire powers. It seemed rude to just ask outright what species she was though.

Sapphire linked arms with Leo and started walking in the direction that Leo had been going. “Let’s play twenty questions. You start.”

Leo looked at Sapphire. She was wearing a black dress again, one that looked like she was going to prom, not a nightclub. There were pale pink roses tucked into the braided crown of her hair. He felt extremely underdressed next to her with his ratty jeans and t-shirt. He concentrated on asking his questions. “Are you bigger than a breadbox?”

“Duh.” Sapphire giggled. “That’s one.”

Leo asked a question that he’d actually thought about based on the few things his dad had taught him about other nonhuman species. “Do you have more than one heart?”

“Nope,” Sapphire said. She guided him out of the way of a group of boys Leo recognized from school. “Just the one heart for me. You?”

“I'm pretty sure that’s not how you play twenty questions,” Leo said. He answered her anyway. “Just one heart over here too. Are you immortal?”

“Yes.”

Leo stopped walking. “Really?”

Sapphire nodded. “Eternal life.”

“How old are you?” The question spilled out of Leo’s mouth before he could stop it. He was pretty sure that following the rule of never asking a lady her age was doubly important when the lady was immortal.

Sapphire didn’t seem to be offended. She tugged on his arm and they started walking again. “I’m the age I am,” she said. “Older than I look, younger than I should be. I was born in eighteen twenty-four.”

Leo did the math in his head and his eyes widened. “You’re one hundred and seventy-four?!”

Sapphire shrugged. “I’m still a baby to some.”

That was hard to imagine. How old would someone have to be to think that a girl more than a hundred years old was a baby?

Leo shook his head in disbelief and went on to his next question. “Do you breathe fire?”

“I’m not a dragon!” Sapphire laughed. “I met one once though.”

Leo's eyes grew wider. “Dragons are real?!” Heff hadn’t mentioned that. 

“Her name was Jenny,” Sapphire said wistfully. “She had beautiful eyes.” She shook her head. “You have twelve questions left.”

* * *

Leo argued Sapphire’s question counting but she didn’t let him win. Every question was a question, so all of them counted. He eventually gave up after wasting two more questions on asking why. He asked about wings and fire and flowers and faeries. He didn’t ask about blood and crosses and mirrors and sunlight. It gave Sapphire an odd feeling in her chest, like a hand wrapped tight around her unbeating heart. If she could feel guilt she might have called it that, but she couldn’t so the feeling remained unnamed for the whole walk up to Leo’s door. 

“Do you want to come in?” Leo asked. It wasn’t an invitation. 

Sapphire shook her head. “I should try to get home for dinner.” She hopefully wouldn’t make it that far without finding someone to eat. “That was your last question, by the way. Next time it’s my turn.”

Leo paused, his hand halfway to the door handle. He blinked. “Next time?” 

Sapphire put a finger to his lips. “Uh uh, you’ve used up all your questions.” She smiled. “I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah,” Leo said as she turned and bounded down the stairs. “Later.”

The hand around her heart grew tighter. Sapphire pressed a hand against her chest. Not guilt, no, but something she could feel. Something she had felt before, many years ago. She didn't know if she liked it or not.

Sapphire shook her head and went to find someone to eat.

She had lied to Leo. She knew exactly where the Bronze was. She headed in that direction, slowly. She didn't really feel like playing the whole seduction game to get a meal and if she went slowly she had more time to scope out people on the streets who she could go after. Anyone who took a shortcut through an alleyway was fair game.

A few blocks from Leo’s house, just at the edge of the warehouse district, a group of four college age boys and three teenage girls were gathered around a truck with beers in hand and music playing loudly from the truck's radio. Two of the girls were dancing on the back of the truck with one of the two blond boys very obviously staring up their skirts. 

The other blond boy shouted at Sapphire. “Hey, pretty girl, why don’t you smile?”

“Don’t be such an ass, Lester,” the black-haired boy sitting in the passenger seat of the truck said. 

“Don't be such a bore, Leroy,” Lester shot back.

Sapphire took a step closer to the truck. “I'm looking for some fun. Could we have fun?”

The as of yet unnamed blond tore his eyes away from the dancing girls and grinned at Sapphire. “Yeah, we could have fun. I’m Fred. What’s your name, babe?”

“Amber,” Sapphire lied. Seven was a bit much for her, best that the ones that got away didn’t know her name. Or she could just eat them all. She smiled. She really had to stop being such a glutton.

Fred died first. Sapphire stepped closer to him. When Fred closed the distance between them her face changed and she smiled at him with her sharp teeth before going for his throat. Fred’s friends didn’t notice until his body hit the ground and Sapphire was standing over it licking his blood off her lips. 

The girl on the ground screamed. She dropped her beer, grabbed the one unnamed boy’s hand, and ran. Leroy threw himself at the driver's seat of the truck and tried to start the engine, yelling at the girls in the back of the truck to hold on. Lester stood frozen next to the truck. 

Sapphire’s movements were leisurely, for her. Anyone watching would have seen a black and white blur smash Lester into the side of the truck hard enough to cave in his skull and then rip the two girls out of the truck bed just as Leroy got the truck started. She let Leroy speed away. Four was more than enough and the terror in the girls’ blood combined with the exorbitant amounts of alcohol they’d drunk was making her giddy. She drank every drop and left their bodies scattered on the road like broken dolls. Then she moved on to Lester, who was still alive but only just. The blood loss killed him before the brain injury did.

Licking blood off her lips, Sapphire dropped Lester’s body on the ground with the others. No need to clean up after herself on a Hellmouth. Gluttony and sloth, she sure was getting her sinning done early tonight.

The wind whispered to her. Sapphire smiled and turned around, changing back to her human face as she did. The blonde Slayer running up behind her came to a sudden halt.

“Slayer.” Sapphire tilted her head, studying the girl. “You’re a pretty little thing.”

The Slayer scowled. “In what world do you get away with calling me little?”

“Of course I can call you little. You’re my little sister.” Sapphire took a step closer to the Slayer. “Do you want to hear a story, little sister?”

The Slayer tightened her grip on her stake. “I’m not your sister.”

“Yes, you are,” Sapphire said in a sing-songy voice. “Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time...”

* * *

Buffy slammed the door behind her and Angel winched. She marched into the room and sat down hard on the couch across from him. Angel had already put down his book when he smelled that she was in his garden, feeling both angry and sad if the new flowers weren’t messing up his classification of scents. He waited for her to say whatever it was she needed to say. He didn’t have to wait long.

“Did you know that Sapphire was a Slayer?” Buffy demanded.

Oh. Angel blinked. That explained a few things.

“No, I didn’t,” he said. “Did Giles find that out?”

Buffy crossed her arms. “No, Sapphire told me. Apparently the Watchers Council kidnapped her and brought her to London, and then after she was sired she killed her Watcher by setting him on fire. And that’s if I understood what she was saying. That girl’s like Drusilla 2.0.”

Actually, that explained a lot.

Angel nodded slowly. “She’ll be faster and stronger than a normal vampire her age. Maybe it’s a good thing you can’t fight her.”

“I can’t kill her,” Buffy said. “She can still kill me.”

Angel couldn’t help but smile. “She can try.”


	3. Everything Burns Down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Includes dialogue from "The Prom" (BtVS Season 3, Episode 20).

Leo put his tray of organic, all-natural vegan lunch special down on the table outside the weird Green Goddess restaurant that was one of the only places in town that he, Jason and Piper could all go to for lunch and still be back in time for their next class. Luckily for him and Jason, the food there was actually pretty good. Jason and Piper had already started eating.

“So,” Piper said. “Prom.”

Jason looked down at his food and grumbled. He and Reyna had broken up again for the second time that month so he was definitely dateless the day before prom. Leo, on the other hand, was grinning from ear to ear. Sapphire had agreed to go to prom with him and she’d talked Piper into going too. Piper had planned on skipping prom ever since first grade.

“I need a dress.” Piper looked like she was in pain just saying it. “Make with the helping, please.”

“Second-hand store?” Leo suggested.

Piper shook her head. “I won’t find anything that’s not for a grandma or a ten-year-old. I’m not my mother, but I do have some standards.”

“Closet,” Jason said. Leo and Piper just looked at him in silence. He raised his head. “Raid your mom’s closet.”

Piper grimaced but agreed that was probably the best idea. Aphrodite had left behind a lot of clothing when she ran away with the biker/solider. There would be plenty of dresses for Piper to choose from. As a bonus, it wouldn’t cost her anything except her pride.

Then Jason asked Piper to go to prom with him.

Piper choked on a walnut.

“That way we won’t have to seventh wheel with the lovebirds,” Jason explained after all the coughing and near death was over. “You in?” 

“Only if you don’t try to kill me again.” Piper drank half of her glass of water. “And no flowers.”

Jason didn’t say anything. Leo knew that he’d already ordered a corsage for Reyna. Hopefully he wouldn’t do the stupid thing and try to give those flowers to Piper.

The corsage that Leo had bought for Sapphire was affordable on his salary, which meant roses that he had to pick up the day before prom and keep in the fridge while he prayed that they wouldn’t fall apart. Luck was with him. The flowers looked nearly as fresh as when he’d picked them up when he went to meet Sapphire at school. She wouldn’t let Leo pick her up from home. Apparently she’d gotten some new roommates who weren’t so human friendly or even half-human friendly. It could happen in the demon community, which Leo had found out from experience in the past few months. There was a lot that Heff hadn’t told him. At least only Sapphire had been around the first time he’d said “nonhuman” out loud. He’d thought that it would be hours before she stopped laughing.

Sapphire smiled when she saw the corsage. “Do you remember what red roses mean?” she asked as she lifted her wrist to her nose to smell the flowers.

Leo remembered. It was why he’d chosen red when the lady at the flower shop asked him to pick a colour.

“Pretty things,” Sapphire said. “I once knew a boy who dove to the bottom of the sea to get a girl a necklace of pearls. Silly boy.”

Leo waited to see if Sapphire would finish the story. She didn’t. Leo was used to that. He offered Sapphire his arm and she took it with a smile.

“You look beautiful,” Leo said as they walked to the doors.

Unlike usual, Sapphire’s dress for the night was silver. Her hair was curled and decorated with delicate silver chains that somehow weren’t getting tangled. The only thing that she hadn’t changed were her shoes, which, Leo saw when she lifted the edge of her skirt to step over the curb, were the same black boots that she wore every night.

“And you look very dashing.” Sapphire’s eyes stopped on Leo’s neck. “Are those little dragons on your tie?”

They were.

Jason and Piper were already inside. Piper had found a dress in her mom’s closet that she didn’t look completely annoyed to be wearing. Jason had done the smart thing and not given her Reyna’s flowers.

A little while into the party, Sapphire went still and turned her head towards the door. She raised her eyebrows. “Hellhounds.”

“What?” Jason asked.

Sapphire smiled. “Nothing. Who’s that girl over there, the redhead?”

Jason and Piper looked in the direction that Sapphire was indicating. They didn’t see her move between them and the door. Leo did. He guessed that hellhounds were exactly like their name made them sound and also moved to a place where he’d be able to intercept any blasts of fire.

“That’s Willow,” Piper said. “She’s the smartest girl at school. I heard that she got offered a job at this big computer company last year.”

“Probably going to end up being ‘Most Likely to Succeed’,” Jason added.

“That’s _Willow_?” Sapphire looked at Willow Rosenberg with actual interest. “She’s a strawberry.”

“What?” Jason asked. Sapphire didn’t respond.

After a few minutes, Sapphire dragged Leo onto to the dance floor. Leo could only assume that whatever danger the hellhounds posed had been taken care of. Buffy was probably responsible. Saving the entire class from hellhounds was right up her alley and Leo didn’t see her anywhere in the room.

The party continued. Soon it seemed like there were almost too many of them to fit inside the auditorium. It was probably just Leo’s imagination though. Piper had looked up the stats for a friend on the prom committee and found out that their class had the highest survival rate in Sunnydale High’s recorded history. That didn’t mean that they had the largest class ever, but somehow it still made the auditorium feel full.

The prom committee went onstage to begin giving out awards at eleven. As expected, Willow was voted Most Likely to Succeed. Cordelia was Best Dressed. Class Clown went to Jack Mayhew, who jumped onstage wearing a hat made of balloons.

Jonathan Levinson went onstage after Best Team Player was awarded to Larry Blaisdell. “We have one more award to give out. Is Buffy Summers here tonight? Did she, um...”

Someone directed a spotlight towards the drinks table and everyone turned to see Buffy standing by the punch-bowl. Her eyes were wide. Leo got the feeling that she hadn’t expected to be singled out.

“This is actually a new category,” Jonathan continued. “First time ever. I guess there were a lot of write-in ballots, and, um, well, the prom committee asked me to read this.” He lifted the piece of paper that he was holding. “‘We’re not good friends. Most of us never found the time to get to know you, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t noticed you. We don’t talk about it much, but it’s no secret that Sunnydale High isn’t really like other high schools. A lot of weird stuff happens here.’”

“Zombies!” Jason shouted.

“Hyena people!” one of the guys on the football team said.

“Snyder!” Jack Mayhew called.

Leo chuckled along with nearly everyone else. Even the people who didn’t go to Sunnydale High knew about Snyder.

Jonathan went on to give Buffy a little, glittering umbrella to represent her Class Protector award. Everyone applauded, even the Cordettes, who had taken the time to dislike Buffy.

“Zombies,” Jason muttered after the applause had died down. He shook his head. “Now that was a weird summer.”

The dancing started again soon after and lasted long into the early hours of the morning. As Leo, Sapphire, Piper and Jason were leaving, Buffy and the older guy she’d danced with for most of the night stopped them outside.

“What are you doing here?” Buffy asked, glaring at Sapphire.

Leo stepped closer to Sapphire protectively. “She’s my date.”

Buffy raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “I’m going to have to explain all the reasons why that’s a bad idea, aren’t I?”

“Angel,” Sapphire said. Buffy’s date looked at her. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

“We’ve been kind of busy,” Angel said.

“Losing faith and burning bridges. I heard.” Sapphire closed some of the distance between her and Angel. “You’re really not as subtle as you think you are.”

Jason frowned. “What are you guys talking about?”

Leo could ask the same question. He wasn’t surprised when Jason was ignored by Sapphire, Buffy and Angel.

“How do you know about that?” Buffy asked.

Sapphire shrugged. “Everyone who knows enough to know knows a slayer embraced the dark. Some ran, some joined her, but most of us are just watching.”

Angel nodded. Buffy looked confused. Leo didn’t understand what Sapphire had just said. A slayer was a person, he guessed, maybe some kind of demon. And a slayer had gone to the dark side. Was that what Sapphire was talking about watching? It sounded like the plot of a horror movie, but Leo was learning about a lot of things that belonged in horror movies.

Buffy shook her head and turned back to Leo. “Do you know about all this stuff?”

“Not all of it,” Leo said. “But...zombies, hyena people, ghosts, demons.”

“Demons?” Piper asked.

Leo nodded. “Long story.”

Buffy looked at Leo. She studied him carefully. Very carefully. Leo had to fight not to throw a fireball in her face. Thankfully, she was interrupted by Angel before Leo could stop reminding himself why it was a bad idea and just throw the fireball.

“Buffy, you and the others had an after party planned, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Buffy said. Leo didn’t know how she could want to have a party after just having a party, but he wasn’t a popular kid and wasn’t Class Protector, so what did he know really?

“I can take care of this,” Angel said. “Go have fun with your friends.”

Buffy turned her uncomfortably careful studying on him for a moment before nodding. Angel asked to talk with Sapphire in private. She looked at Leo with an unreadable expression before agreeing.

“What was that?” Jason demanded as Buffy walked away and Angel and Sapphire retreated out of hearing range.

Leo looked at his friends. Heff had said that he shouldn’t tell anyone what he was, but he trusted Jason and Piper. Even before the whole thing with Khione he would have said that he trusted them with his life. 

“Well,” he said, “Sapphire explained it something like this. The world is older than you know...”

* * *

“I’d ask why you’re still here, but I think I already know,” Angel said.

Sapphire looked over her shoulder at Leo and his friends. Leo was giving them the demon talk and they weren’t running away. That was good.

“Sapphire,” Angel said sternly.

Sapphire turned back to him. “You never gave me red roses.” The roses Angelus had given her had always been white. His little joke perhaps. Both of them were far from innocent.

“You always wanted human hearts,” Angel muttered. “Look, I know you don’t care, but that,” he pointed at Leo, Jason and Piper, “is just cruel. I’m not going to let you hurt any of those kids.”

That was a strange thing to say. Why would Angel think that she would hurt Leo or Jason or Piper? Well, she did like hurting humans, but Leo wasn’t human and Jason and Piper were his. It would be bad manners to hurt them.

Also, Sapphire liked Piper. She had a nice voice.

“They’re safe as houses,” Sapphire said. “Shouldn’t you be worried about the Dark Slayer and the sorcerer holding her leash?”

Angel’s face crumpled into a frown. “How do you even know about that? Really?”

Sapphire shrugged. “I’ve been keeping an eye on my little sisters. Not close, but not far.” It helped that she had good hearing. “Their Watcher, he’s not a real Watcher, is he? He cares about the sunshine one, the Class Protector, Buffy. He cares about Buffy.”

She tilted her head from side to side. No matter how many new perspectives she tried it still seemed all wrong. Watchers weren’t supposed to be nice. They weren’t supposed to care. They were supposed to move pieces on a board and punish them if they tried to leave their square. Corsets and crumpets, without the crumpets.

“The other one is useless though,” Sapphire said. “He’s not even worth killing.” And she had tried. The man had dropped his stake and then tripped over it. She’d felt embarrassed on his behalf. It ruined her appetite.

Angel gave a derisive little laugh. “There’s something I never thought I’d hear you say. Are the kids ‘not worth killing’ too?”

It was Sapphire’s turn to laugh. “They’re Leo’s and Leo is mine. We’ll burn the world for them. Nico and Hazel will too.”

Angel studied her face. He sighed. “Great. There’s no way I’m going to get you to leave, is there?”

Sapphire shook her head.

Angel sighed again. “Go back to your date.”

Sapphire had barely turned to do just that when Angel called her back.

“Does he know what you are?” he asked.

Sapphire looked at him for a long moment. “He knows I’m not human. He knows I’m too old. He knows I’m too young.”

“Does he know you’re a monster?”

Should she hit him? That felt like the right thing to do. Sapphire raised her hand to deliver a slap but instead found herself caressing Angel’s cheek. “So says Angelus, Scourge of Europe. You’d know all about monsters, wouldn’t you?”

She turned and walked away.

“What was that about?” Leo asked. He was glaring in Angel’s direction.

Sapphire looked over her shoulder just in time to see Angel retreating into the shadows. He was still watching them, but Leo, Jason and Piper wouldn’t know that he was there.

“Angel is an old friend,” she said. “We were just trading advice.”

Jason blinked rapidly. “Is he a demon too?”

Sapphire nodded. “Yes, he is.”

“What kind of demon?” Piper asked. “What about Buffy?”

Sapphire lifted her eyes up to the stars. “The same kind as me.”

* * *

There was a paw print of dried blood on the porch in front of the door of the house Angel had tracked Sapphire to a few days after she’d made her presence in Sunnydale known. The source of it became clear when a giant black dog burst from the pet door, dissolving into shadows on the way out so that it could fit through the tiny space. The Barghest shook itself and then turned its fiery eyes on Angel. It apparently decided that he wasn’t a threat because it only growled once before bounding away into the night. Angel didn’t bother going after it. With its ability to travel between shadows the demon dog was probably on the other side of Sunnydale already. He’d have to tell Giles that there was one in town.

Angel rang the doorbell. He heard it chiming inside the house and someone groaned. Heavy footsteps followed and the door opened to reveal a blue-haired, grey-eyed young man with a mouthful of sharp teeth.

“Angelus?” The man took several steps back. “I don’t want any trouble.”

Angel didn’t correct him. He’d seen merpeople take bites out of vampires before and he didn’t want to have to deal with that. “I’m here to see Sapphire.” He flashed one of Angelus’s grins. “Get her for me, would you?”

The merman was running upstairs almost before Angel finished speaking. Angel let himself in and went to wait in the living room. The room was covered in lace doilies and framed photos. Angel looked at them and winched. He said a prayer for the house’s former owners, likely the elderly couple in the giant family photo above the fireplace.

Sapphire came into the living room with the merman hovering behind her, pulling a silk robe over her shoulders. Angel held back a chuckle when he saw that her pajamas had little cartoon bats all over them.

Sapphire rubbed her eyes. “Why’re you here so early? I haven’t even had breakfast yet.”

“We’re going to school,” Angel said. “Get dressed. Something you can fight in. Not a dress.”

Sapphire looked at him with the beginnings of a frown on her face. Then, without a word, she turned and went back upstairs. Angel heard doors slamming.

“Lacy is not going to be happy,” the merman muttered. Angel looked at him and he quickly explained. “I think Sapphire is stealing from her closet.”

“So the demon dog is named Lacy,” Angel said. “What do they call you? Leroy?”

The merman crossed his arms. “Malcolm.”

Sapphire stalked back into the living room wearing an outfit not dissimilar to one Buffy would wear...except her pink t-shirt said “BITE ME” on it. Buffy would never be that obvious.

“I’m guessing we won’t be stopping for breakfast,” Sapphire said. She didn’t wait for an answer before standing on her toes and biting into Angel’s neck. Angel just sighed and let her drink. He should have remembered that a grumpy Sapphire was an extra-violent Sapphire, and he knew that she was going to be grumpy after being woken up. At least he would be able to stop her from killing anyone.

“Beef blood,” Sapphire grumbled. “Let’s go.”

The auditorium of Sunnydale High was full when Angel and Sapphire arrived. Xander was standing on stage in front of the muttering crowd of senior students. He spotted them first.

“And look who’s here just in time for some show and tell. Get up here, Angel!” Xander leaned towards Angel after he’d climbed on stage and hissed, “Why did you bring her?”

“She can help,” Angel whispered back.

Xander clapped his hands and turned back to his classmates. “Okay, guys. Angel is a vampire. He’s on our side, so try not to kill him. Anyone who hasn’t seen a vampire in game face should move forward so they can see.”

Angel waited for the shuffling to die down before he put on his game face. A few kids gasped. One girl let out a shriek that left his ears ringing.

“What is the point of this exercise?” Sapphire asked with her hands over her own ears.

“The Mayor wants to eat the graduating class. We’re going to stop him,” Angel said.

“Oh.” Sapphire uncovered her ears. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Angel decided not to question her easy acceptance. He turned back to the kids. “Sapphire’s going to be working with me and some of you guys. Xander said the football team volunteered to act as a reserve force.”

A tall boy waved. “You’ve got half of us. The seniors can’t miss the ceremony.”

“So, yeah,” Xander said. “Any questions? No? Okay, let’s work on weapons. We’ve got swords, spears, a few crossbows, and I’m working on getting us flamethrowers.”

A girl who Angel recognized as Leo’s friend raised her hand. “The archery club has about twenty bows. Recurve.”

Xander pointed at her. “Good idea. Great idea. You guys don’t have real arrows though, do you?”

The girl shook her head. “We could order some but there are a lot of hoops to jump through.”

“We could make them,” Sapphire said. Angel and Xander turned to look at her.

“You know how to make arrows?” Xander asked.

Sapphire shrugged. “It was part of my training. It was difficult to get a steady supply in London circa eighteen forty-one.”

“Okay,” Xander said. “Archers, the Slaypire is with you guys. Get bows and start making arrows. For everyone else it’s time for a crash course in slayage.”

Angel jumped off the stage after Sapphire and grabbed her arm before she could disappear into the crowd of students. “Archers and reserves, over here.” He waved his free hand above his head so that everyone he was calling could find them.

Nine students gathered around Angel and Sapphire. They divided themselves by archery club and football team, allowing Angel to see that he had five boys to work with while Sapphire had a group of three girls and one boy.

“Okay, we’re going to need more archers,” Angel said. He looked at the four they had. “Any suggestions?”

“Xander said the last row would have bows,” the boy said. “Alphabetical order. I’ll find them.”

Angel nodded and the boy darted away. Then Angel turned to the football players. “Do you guys know anyone else who’d be willing to fight?”

The football players talked among themselves. “The wrestling team maybe?” one of them said. “A few of the upperclassmen, definitely Clarisse. I’ll make some calls.”

“Do that. Get them here.” Angel looked at Sapphire. “What do you need?”

“A proper breakfast,” Sapphire grumbled, quietly enough that only Angel would be able to hear her. She cleared her throat. “Wood, rags and grease for fire arrows, metal for normal arrowheads.”

“Shop class,” Leo’s archery club friend said. “They’ve got everything we need there.” She turned to Angel and the football players. “You guys let Michael know where we are.”

Angel stopped Sapphire as she and the archers were leaving. “Don’t kill anyone,” he said quietly.

She shrugged off his hand. “You should know I’m not that stupid.”

Graduation was the next day. Angel and Sapphire were waiting with the reserves for the eclipse to take place so that they could go outside. Clarisse La Rue, the only girl on the wrestling team, was cracking her knuckles in anticipation.

Sapphire tugged on Angel’s sleeve. “Angel? I...I haven’t had to fight, really fight, in a long time. A very long time.”

“You were a Slayer,” Angel muttered. “You’ll know what to do.”

After a few moments Sapphire said, “Rule one: Don’t die.”

Angel sighed. “Yeah, that pretty much covers it.” He turned towards the outside at exactly the same time as Sapphire did. “We’re up.”

Angel lost track of Sapphire seconds after they dove into the Mayor’s forces from behind. He just had to hope that she was killing vampires and not students or parents. The battle was chaotic. He was fighting beside Mark and Ethan, two of the football players, and then he blinked and he was surrounded by ashes and Cordelia was staking a vampire a few feet away. A bright light caught his eye and he traced the path of the fireball hitting the giant snake that used to be the Mayor back to Leo and his two friends. They scattered as the snake lunged at them and another fireball burst to life in Leo’s hands. Huh, so _that_ was why Sapphire wasn’t planning on killing him. 

When the giant snake followed Buffy into the school, Xander started shouting for Phase Three to start. Phase Three was running as fast as they could and getting survivors out of the blast radius before the school exploded. Angel picked up someone’s mom, who had been bitten by a vampire but was still breathing, and fought his way through the few remaining minions to get to the street. He passed three bodies on the way there. Ethan was one of them.

The last few students, stragglers who were supporting their wounded comrades-in-arms, crossed the street just as the school building was engulfed in flames. The sound of the explosion rocked everyone back, though no one seemed to have the energy to duck.

They milled around for a while until firetrucks and ambulances arrived, fixing up what wounds they could and talking quietly. Angel passed off the mom he was carrying to her daughter and went to get them both bandages from the first-aid station Oz’s bandmates had set up. He crossed paths with Xander on the way back. He nodded once and Angel nodded back.

Angel found Sapphire standing at the edge of the crowd, watching as firemen blasted water on the fire consuming the school and paramedics rushed the most injured to ambulances. She had a very familiar tweed jacket pulled over her shoulders. Angel wondered when she and Giles had met and why he’d given her his jacket.

“All the monsters are dead except one,” Sapphire said. She looked side-eyed at Angel. “One and a half.”

Angel shrugged. They watched the school burning in silence for a time. Sapphire spoke first.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

Angel looked at her with surprise. “How do you...?”

“I have eyes,” Sapphire said. “And ears. And prophetic dreams. City of Angels?”

After a moment Angel sighed and nodded. It wasn’t like Sapphire wouldn’t be able to find him again if she really wanted to.

“I’ve been thinking about New York.” Sapphire’s gaze drifted away from the fire and towards one of the ambulances. “Malcolm washed up on the wrong coast trying to visit his sister. I haven’t seen Percy and Annabeth in years. A road trip could be fun.”

Angel followed her line of sight and saw Leo and his friends gathered around the back of an ambulance. The blond boy was having his head wound looked at by a paramedic while the girl and Leo were talking. Leo kept looking around. 

“What happened to not leaving Sunnydale?” Angel asked.

Sapphire shrugged. “I got bored.”

She blinked and a tear ran down her cheek. In that moment she looked very small. Angel gave her a hug.

Sapphire sniffed. “Not a real Watcher at all.” She turned and walked away without saying goodbye.

Angel stayed standing at the curb for a few seconds. Then he walked back towards the crowd. It was selfish, but he had to see Buffy one more time.


End file.
